Skip to main content

Blizzard’s long-rumored ‘Project Titan’ MMO is canceled, game details emerge

blizzard cancels next gen mmo titan ae
Image used with permission by copyright holder
UPDATE: There’s a whole bunch of information now on exactly what Titan was, compliments of Kotaku’s discussions with anonymous sources, some or all of whom are ex-Blizzard employees. It was meant to be a massively multiplayer game split between two very distinct styles of play. Check out original report for details.

ORIGINAL POST: After seven years of eagerly-consumed rumors, Blizzard has officially canceled its next-generation massively multiplayer game, Titanwhich the studio confirmed in an interview with Polygon.

Titan joins the ranks of Warcraft Adventures and StarCraft Ghost as projects that Blizzard axed mid-development when things weren’t clicking. “We didn’t find the fun,” explained CEO Mike Morhaime. “We didn’t find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that’s the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no.”

Senior vice president of story and franchise development Chris Metzen cited a careful reevaluation of the company’s identity. In the wake of World of Warcraft‘s record-breaking success, there was a “sense of inertia and obligation” to devote the studio’sresources toward a second MMORPG. That success also afforded them the breathing room to step back and consider the games they wanted to be making and how they wanted the company to be seen. Morhaime explained simply: “We don’t want to identify ourselves with a particular genre. We just want to make great games every time.”

The game was never formally announced, but rumors that the company was working on a follow-up to its massively successful World of Warcraft began circulating in response to 2007 job postings for a “next-gen MMO.” The following year, Morhaime confirmed that the project was under development and would be an entirely new IP. Rumors about the content of the game itself circulated steadily for years, but nothing was ever verified by Blizzard beyond the project’s existence. In retrospect, the beginning of the end came in 2013 when the project was stripped down for “large design and technology changes.” The team of 100 was shifted around the company, leaving only 30 people working on Titan.

Both Morhaime and Metzen alluded to subsequent, smaller projects like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm as playing a part in the company’s decision to drop Titan. The success of Hearthstone showed that Blizzard’s games did not need to fit into a particular scale.

“Maybe we can be what we want to be and inspire groups around the company to experiment, get creative, think outside the box and take chances on things that just might thrill people,” explained Metzen. “Maybe they don’t have to be these colossal, summer blockbuster-type products.”

BlizzCon, the company’s annual convention, is fast approaching on November 7-8. With Titan off the table your guesses are as good as any as for what revelations might be had, so share any speculation in the comments.

Editors' Recommendations

Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
Blizzard and NetEase reportedly cancel a Warcraft mobile MMO
Orc and human facing off for Warcraft promo art.

A Warcraft mobile MMO from Blizzard and NetEase is reportedly canceled after three years of development.

This spinoff project, codenamed Neptune, was a mobile MMO World of Warcraft spin-off that took place during a different time period. Blizzard and NetEase scrapped it due to an unspecified financial disagreement This news comes by way of a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the game's development. Bloomberg reached out to NetEase and Activision Blizzard for comment on the project's status, but neither company chose to comment on the matter.

Read more
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 canceled after studio merges with Blizzard
Skater in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

If you thought more Tony Hawk games would be remastered after the success of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, those dreams wiped out a long time ago. The development of a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake was reportedly canceled after Vicarious Visions merged with Blizzard.

This development came out of a chat between Twitch streamer AndyTHPS and none other than Tony Hawk during Monday night's broadcast. The legendary skateboarder told the streamer that there were plans to remake Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4, but those plans fell through when Activision Blizzard decided to completely absorb Vicarious Visions in April, a process that had been in the works since the beginning of the year.

Read more
Every canceled video game NFT project (so far)
Jon Bernthal's character stands with soldiers in Ghost Recon Breakpoint

Gamers aren't fans of NFTs. Whether it's because of their environmental impact, pay-to-win implications, or rampant fraud in the space, it's clear that many people don't want NFTs in their video games. Despite that, companies and people related to gaming have tried to get into the NFT and blockchain space.
As a result, the backlash against many of these announcements is extreme. While some companies remained undeterred, others have canceled NFT integration outright. Some developers have even shut down or ended support for games with NFTs. As the amount of NFT-related cancellations and backtracking is growing, we've rounded up every gaming-related NFT project that's been canceled, shut down, or walked back since the trend began in late 2021.
Discord
The first notable NFT integration cancellation in the gaming space involved Discord, which many people use to chat while playing games. On November 8, 2021, Discord Founder and CEO Jason Citron tweeted an image showing the crypto wallet service MetaMask integrated into Discord.
https://twitter.com/jasoncitron/status/1457841222995693570
Discord users immediately responded to the post with vitriol, and Citron confirmed that Discord did not plan to move forward with this integration just two days later. "Thanks for all the perspectives everyone," he said. "We have no current plans to ship this internal concept. For now we're focused on protecting users from spam, scams, and fraud. Web3 has lots of good, but also lots of problems we need to work through at our scale."
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

On December 15, 2021, developer GSC Game World announced it would partner with DMarket to put NFTs in the highly anticipated shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. The game was going to let players use cryptocurrency to buy items and let some people scan themselves and get put into the game as a "metahuman." 
While GSC Game World initially defended the choice, the announcement was met with so much hate that the developer canceled the initiative the next day. "We hear you," its statement reads. "Based on the feedback we received, we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. The interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team. We're making this game for you to enjoy -- whatever the cost is. If you care, we care too."
This was the most ambitious mainstream gaming NFT integration that we've seen yet, and even then, people didn't like it. It demonstrates that there will always be some backlash against NFT announcements, even when it's doing something unique in-game. 
Sega

Read more